A reason to believe.

Where is Batman when you need him

And where is the Wizard of Oz

When the drinks all run out there is no-one

And that’s simply because and because.

Memory No.19b. (It started with a kiss.)

Well, that’s me returned from the flea market and a successful visit it was to be sure.

The weather was magnificent, warm, but not oppressive, sunbeams, gentle breeze, what more can one ask? (Perhaps a pretty lady on my arm, wouldn’t go amiss!)

As for my success’s! I managed, against all odds to buy an ugly Indian AND a cheap bust. (Not a great bust, BUT, with the addition of a cheap bra, it will do methinks!)

The ugly Indian was a sympathy buy. Started out at £10, but after three visits to renegotiate, we got down to £3. All the change I had in my pocket turned out to be £2-20, so we settled on that. It was at that point that the stall holder told me it was cursed!!! lol.

The cheap bust, started at £30 and ended up at £18, which was probably £17-99 too much.

I did also purchase, satsumas, grapes and potatoes. (The potatoes were described as for baking!!) (Two for 79p!!!) (79p???? Why not 80p or 75p?) (What’s it all about Alfie?)

So all in all, I think I have done well AND it gives me the perfect excuse for browsing the lingerie catalogue in M&S. Everyone’s a winner.

When I arrived at the market, another car was dropping someone off and they briefly kissed ‘goodbye’. None of these air kisses, a proper lip on lip job.

For some reason this led me to thinking about my very first kiss. She was called, Elizabeth Turner and she was eight years old and, in my eyes the prettiest girl in the class. We were on a school trip for the day and I’m not sure how it happened but I saw the opportunity and seized the moment and leant forward and kissed her, somewhere in the vicinity of her lips. (I’m not exactly sure where the kiss landed because my eyes were closed tight). Elizabeth screamed, burst into tears and ran to tell the teacher. By now all of the class, a large group of passers by, a herd of cows in a field nearby, three policemen and a stray dog had gathered round me to see what all the fuss and noise was about. If the ground had opened and swallowed me, I would have thanked God, for his intervention, instead I turned crimson and shook. The teacher strode over and sent me to wait on the bus till it was home time. This was at five past nine in the morning, we had arrived at 9 o’clock and were due to leave at five that afternoon. That was a long day and the sad part was, it wasn’t the greatest of kisses, no tongues, she didn’t swoon, no marriage proposals, she wasn’t even pregnant. Sigh. All the dreams I had wrapped up in my heart since I was seven and a half went up in smoke.

With hindsight, eight proved to be a good year for kissing, it was 23 years till next I puckered my lips and Fat Stan was no more appreciative than was Elizabeth Turner.

I wonder if Elizabeth remembers that kiss. (Fat Stan does, I STILL get hate mail.) I wonder if she has regrets that she didn’t respond. Heck if we had started at that age we could be cuddling by now.

Elizabeth Turner where are you?

So that was my day at the flea market.

Observation No.132d. (It weren’t me yer ‘Onour it were the tea-cake.)

Just returned from a lovely seven mile walk on the edge of the moors, warm, cloudy, dry day, ideal for walking.

Stopped for a toasted teacake in Great Ayton in a little café. Decided to take the teacake and a drink to a bench by the river and enjoy ‘lunch’ in the fresh air. I have had some dodgy teacakes before, but this was like eating a house brick. The little café is one of these that, I presume only bake ‘healthy’ things and use flour that no-one has heard of and other good for you ingredients, that do nothing at all to improve taste or quality. I don’t think I have ever eaten a tea-cake before, where I decided after two bites it was inedible. (AND I was hungry!!!)(Very hungry!!!) It was tasteless, heavy, and I doubt my digestive system would ever cope with it. Healthy food? It certainly is healthy, it stops you eating. Dispels hunger. Puts you off food for life. What a great way to diet, just buy all your food from the ‘Rabbit’.

Rather than be wasteful and just put it in the bin, (The bin was only made of mild steel, I am not at all sure it would have supported the weight of three quarters of a teacake from the ‘Rabbit’.) I saw that there were ducks a little way downstream fighting over a few crumbs a Mother and her child had thrown into the stream. I made my way to the stream, broke off a lump of tea-cake (Luckily I always carry a hammer and chisel with me whilst walking.) I whistled the ducks, which they ignored. (Ignorance amongst ducks is a problem in Great Ayton I find.) (A little snobbish!) Even though they ignored my whistle, I threw my tea-cake lump in their general direction. It hit the water like concrete and sunk without a trace.  The ducks lazily swam over to investigate the ‘splash’ found nothing and looked up at me with mild annoyance in their beaks for disturbing them from enjoying the crumbs that the Mother and child had left for them. I snapped another lump off and this time decided to ‘land’ it directly in front of them so that had a chance of catching it before it sank. (How on earth can a tea-cake sink like the Bismark going down?) My aim was slightly off and I caught the lead duck squarely on the side of it’s head. The good news was that it died instantly and therefore didn’t feel any pain. (I will write to it’s children later to offer my sympathies and deny all knowledge of the heinous act.)

I suppose the moral to this little tale, is that if you are venturing to Great Ayton, either take a picnic, or continue into the village and buy fish and chips, which are not quite the healthiest option BUT they taste great and are kind to ducks.

Observation No.132d. (Slugs ain’t what they used to be.)

Meanwhile back to the slug invasion.

Whilst walking lately, I have noticed a veritable army of giant slugs is on the move. They always seem to be heading from south to north!!! Some are carrying banners, saying, ‘Slugs lives matter too, watch where you are walking!’ Even as I type and prepare for my life as a drunk monk, I see another group are gathering in my garden, waving yet more banners!! ‘Salt is for chips, not for slugs’ Oh dear, I fear a revolution.

AND it’s going to be hotter than hell today, so I need to be out there, in the sunbeams, covered with a liberal coating of lard, waiting for the heat to weld my thong to my lily white skeletal frame. Boy, will I look good once the sun has blistered my nose and burnt my bald spots.

I was in Tesco last night, they seem to have forgotten Covid exists. Gone is the one way system. Gone are the announcements about social distancing. (You VILL keep 2mts apart or you VILL be banned from the lingerie aisle!! AND NO!!!! You CANNOT touch anything!!!)

Perhaps Tesco Hartlepool, is now a virus free zone and is the one safe place in the world to be. (I should maybe tell the slug army to head that way!!! They could picket the Tesco own brand sea-salt section AND I am sure they sell slug  . .Shhh . . .  whisper, pellets!!!!) (I sense trouble ahead for Tesco, the slug army in my garden has commandeered a mobility scooter to take them to Hartlepool.)

Observation No.132c

I was making a second cup of tea this morning, gazing out of the kitchen window and I saw a spider had constructed a web over one of the corners of the outside window frame overnight.

AND what a scruffy web it was!!! Ragged. Uneven. Poorly attached. Completely lacking in artistry.

What happened to the beautiful symmetry, the workmanship that used to go into web construction? Have spiders standards slipped so much, I wonder?

Where is their pride, to build something that poor? No self respecting fly would ever allow themselves to be caught up in THAT.

I blame lack of discipline at spider school personally.

Bethea Muir.

In the half light, in the twilight

Writing her words with a thread

And long before she would finish

Poor Bethea Muir would be dead

Hope her nine years, were all good years

I hope she lived each day with a smile

Pray her short life, was a good life

And every moment she lived was worthwhile

Did they miss her, when they lost her

Little Bethea Muir, only nine

Never grew up, to be a grown-up

Little Bethea’s star wouldn’t shine

If I knew where she was laid now

I would visit Miss Bethea Muir

Just to tell her, she’s remembered

And that her sampler, with time has endured

In her twilight, in the half light

As she wove her words with a thread

Not knowing, that not finished

It would still live today, to be read.

 

God bless little Bethea Muir. 1815-1824.

 

I was looking through an auction catalogue and came across a sampler from 1824. Very unusual in the fact that it wasn’t finished, which probably meant that the little girl who was making it, didn’t live to finish it. It was still crisp and clean and neatly done, with trees and some script. It was signed Bethea Muir. Aged 9. March 30th. 1824. Seeing it made me think about Bethea. She was born 4 years before Queen Victoria and died when Victoria was just five years old. Victoria lived to be 82 years old. There but for fortune little Bethea Muir. Anyway, I eventually sat down and wrote this. AND if you have taken the time to read this, then in a way, Bethea’s name lives on.

 

 

 

 

Hard rain.

When the world stopped screaming

Came the hard rain

T’was the tears of the earth

Brought the plague’s pain

But, we learned not a thing

From the bloodstains

We just look at the fields

Where the dead were lain.

Clouds II.

I have become interested lately in trying to deliver a message in four lines that also rythme. I relaise that sometimes my poems ramble on and a lot of the content is just packing, albeit unintentional. So I was looking again at the previous poem ‘Clouds’ and I realised that it said all I wanted to say in the last four lines, hence, ‘Clouds II’ the simplified version, but still with a message.

Clouds II.

And all the time in passing

Days are floating by

Time is just a calendar

And clouds are just a sky.

Clouds.

And clouds are just passing

Like cotton in my thoughts

Of days and days of splendour

In seasons I have bought

Of a river, just a river

Of its ripples in the haze

Where in splendid isolation

Can I waste my time in days

Where a castle is a fortress

A stronghold in my mind

That betrays a sense of safety

Locked, as all its kind

A dazzling, striking rainbow

Always just too far

Too far to catch and so to hold

A fleeting falling star

A tree grows in my forest

Throws its leaves out to the sun

Then pulls them back in soft array

From whence they had begun

Deer stir from their grazing

And whisper to the breeze

Which takes their words in gentle tone

To catch within the tree

The words become a story

In turn becomes a tale

To weave to me a fantasy

To drift upon life’s sail

And all the time in passing

Days are floating by

Time is just a calendar

And clouds are just a sky.

 

The Blackbird.

Every morning at three forty five

The blackbirds song, pushes sleep from my eyes

The sky lights slow to his melody ring

But tell me for whom does Blackbird sing